


The Obscure Feeling of Hope

by jessingaround



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Harry Potter, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Drinking, Gay, Gay Draco Malfoy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rape, Therapy, Truth Telling Vow, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 04:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11889660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessingaround/pseuds/jessingaround
Summary: Draco wants to drink so he ends up playing a game of magical truth or dare, but he isn't prepared for the truths that he ends up having to admit to himself.





	The Obscure Feeling of Hope

Draco wasn’t entirely sure who’s idea it was to gather all of the eighth year students in the Room of Requirement with a year’s supply of liquor and begin a game of magically encouraged Truth or Dare. No matter whose idea it was, everyone seemed to welcome the plan to get sloshed and play the game of embarrassment. Draco, along with most everyone else, started out the game requesting dares. As the three firewhiskeys started to take effect, however, he started asking for questions so he wouldn’t have to move. He hadn’t had to answer anything too difficult, just who his first kiss was, how old he was when he lost his virginity, and (asked by a Ravenclaw) what his worst final grade was. He didn’t allow himself to think about the details of the questions but instead allowed the Truth Telling Vow to take over and answered on autopilot.

It was manageable until someone, he couldn’t actually remember their name in his alcohol induced reality, asked him what his relationship with his father was like.

His chest immediately tightened and he could feel his lips trying to move around words as the magic of the vow tried to take over. Suddenly, it was like nothing but those memories existed. The degrading touches. The slurs of  _ whore  _ and  _ faggot. _ The tight grip on his hair and hip. He knew he was hyperventilating. He knew a full out panic attack was probable. He just couldn’t do anything to stop it. He barely recognized his own voice saying, “He rape-” Then someone else was cutting in. 

“Too far. Draco, stop talking.” He felt the magical pull diminish immediately, and his panic took over.

Then there was a body in front of him, warm and firm and constant. “Out, everyone,” the same voice spoke, then after a moment of silence, “Fucking  _ now _ !” He could make out the shuffling of bodies, but he didn’t care. He could barely hold himself together, let alone focus on the actions of other people. Silence took over the room, aside from his own ragged breathing. Then the voice returned, “You’re okay. I’m right here. You are safe, so safe.” He realized that the body connected to that voice was rocking him back and forth: gently, soothingly.

It didn’t stop the sobs. The body held him tightly, but seemed to consciously avoid trapping him. Any movement from him brought a distinct release of pressure. Draco pressed his face into the firm chest in front of him and sobbed uncontrollably. This person, somehow, knew that Draco was about to be forced to give words to something he could hardly admit to himself. After his sobs ebbed and his breathing returned to normal Draco pulled away cautiously to find green eyes staring back at him in concern.

Draco didn’t want to, couldn’t say the words, but he wanted Harry to understand just what had happened to him. He could feel a gentle brush of Harry’s mind on his own, in the process of embedding the image of a field of lavender, and allowed his Occlumency to fall. He didn’t show him everything, not even close, but he allowed the most recent memory to resurface and present itself. 

_ Lucius was going in for his trial the next day. He had been on house arrest since immediately following the fall of The Dark Lord, and as he suspected this would be his last day out of Azkaban he wanted to have one last moment with his son. It was late in the evening and he had been drinking his prefered brandy. The smell was assaulting and Draco knew that he was going to be regret being born soon enough. His father didn’t kiss him, he didn’t prepare him, he didn’t use lube or love or any kind of care. He pushed into him with force and fucked him until he could feel the blood and semen running out of him. He was left alone, cold and hurting, in his bedroom. _

“Fuck, Draco.” Harry’s hand gently guided Draco’s head against his chest as he went back to sobbing. The rocking was back and while Draco found it comforting he couldn’t push the panic down. No one knew. No one could know, his father had made that much clear. The one time he had even hinted at telling his mother, Lucius had taken his cane to his back and broken two of his ribs. “They took that game too far. They should have known that Truth or Dare was an awful idea for war survivors. Shit.”

“Sedate me.” The words were broken and barely a whisper, but Harry heard them. A potion was soon enough being pressed to his lips and he swallowed greedily. As Draco drifted into unconsciousness, Harry stood, still holding him and carried him to the suite that Harry called his own.

***

When Draco drifted back into consciousness he was tucked into a bed that was not his own. He looked around, trying to determine where he was and what had happened, then he caught sight of Harry, standing at his wardrobe dressed in only a pair of fitted trousers and drying his hair with a towel. When Harry caught his opened and fearful gaze he asked calmly, “How much of last night do you remember?”

“Game-” his voice was full of phlegm so he paused to cough. “Game of Truth or Dare in the Room of Requirement.” He paused to try to remember the details. “There was a lot of alcohol. I drank a lot of alcohol.” He pulled himself into a sitting position but was assaulted with dizziness. Harry was in front of him immediately, holding him steady. “Someone asked about my father.” Draco tried, unsuccessfully, to choke back a sob. “How did you, why did you stop it?”

Harry settled himself next to Draco on the bed, allowing the blond to lean into him. “As soon as Terry asked that question I knew that no matter what your answer was shit would go down. Then I saw the way your body tensed, and I-” Harry turned so he was facing Draco and looking directly into his eyes. “Draco, I know what a tense like that means. Then you were breathing faster and as soon as I heard those first syllables I knew I couldn’t let you keep talking. I broke the spell Hermione cast to invoke truth, and told you to stop. Those first syllables got through though, and I knew you were going to fall to pieces.”

“Thank you.”

“It gets better, okay? I know it doesn’t seem like it ever will, but it does. With distance and after talking with people.”

Draco rubbed at his red rimmed eyes. “I don’t fucking have anyone to talk to, Potter. If you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly popular. Pansy and Blaise would probably side with him since it started after he found out I’m gay.”

“One, it’s shit he thought you being gay was reason to do that. Two, I think your friends would be more accepting than you are giving them credit for. You should at least try coming out to them, when you’re ready. If they can’t accept who you love, then they really aren’t your friends anyway. And three, you can always talk to me. I can relate to probably more than you think. I’m bisexual. I recently came out to Hermione and Ron, which was horrifying but they accepted it and me and it made me feel so much better to know that I didn’t have to hide from my friends. I was also abused as a kid. The Dursleys, well, they were shit. They mostly withheld food and beat me and talked to me like I was worthless. But my point is that I get how your past doesn’t just disappear because you are away from it. Time helps, but it doesn’t make the past disappear.”

Silence pulsed between them, Draco just staring at Harry.

“Oh, therapy also helps. Like a lot.”

“What?”

“Therapy. It’s like… talking to a friend, only instead of a friend it’s a person who went to school to deal with shit like this.”

“So… a professional talker?”

“Kind of.” Harry chuckled. “It’s a bit more than that. You can come to one of my sessions to see what you think, if you want.”

“That… that sounds nice.”

And even though nothing was fixed and Draco still felt a bit like he was burning from the inside out, he also felt something else, something he had never felt before. After he sat in on Harry’s session, after he started his own weekly sessions with the same therapist, after months of confiding in Harry and eventually Pansy and Blaise, he would come to realize that the obscure feeling he had felt pulse within him was hope.


End file.
